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As someone who often decides against shopping online at House of Fraser due to the sheer amount of products to trawl through, I’m definitely drawn to the select amount on offer at Debenhams.

But why not John Lewis?

I’m not entirely sure, but perhaps it’s related to the retailer insisting on calling its sale a ‘clearance’.

Though this clarification is intended to provide a greater sense of exclusivity, it doesn’t provide any more benefits for customers.

So, essentially, it’s still just a sale.

Calls-to-action & navigation

When it comes to product pages, there’s not much difference between the three sites in terms of extra incentive.

Each department store highlights prices before the sale, using big bold typography to advertise the discounted value.

Marginally better than the others, Debenhams also includes the amount saved, which does allow for greater insight at-a-glance.

One aspect of the John Lewis site which I particularly like is the ability to filter by sale percentage.

Allowing the user to quickly and easily find the most discounted items, it’s certainly the best filtering feature I have come across.

In terms of navigation, while Debenhams and John Lewis choose to include a dedicated sale page, both drop-down menus feel far too cluttered.

On the other hand, House of Fraser’s subtle yet effective ‘Sale’ sections in the drop-down menu ensures that the user knows exactly where to look for offers.

In conclusion…

While there isn’t much to differentiate between the department stores in terms of strategy, House of Fraser’s simple navigation and editorial-style certainly makes it the most appealing online sale out of the three.

It might offer a mind-boggling amount of items, but with other sites being completely overtaken by sales promotion, it manages to maintain some sense of decorum at least.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Amazon has recently launched an attempt to break into the UK grocery market.

AmazonFresh (separate to the company’s bulk-buy Grocery section) is an online food delivery service that’s set to rival the UK supermarkets commonly known as the ‘Big Four’ – namely Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda.